Camping season arrives, and Drake decides to take Gosalyn on a camping trip to a national park. He persists in being a "true outdoorsman" despite having to deal with stubborn tents, accidents with campfires, the Muddlefoots turning up uninvited and a murderous bear roaming the grounds. And it soon transpires that this is the least of Drake's problems...
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Hero: Drake and Gosalyn are saved from the bear early on by the timely arrival of the Muddlefoots, who hit it with their camper without ever knowing it was there.
- Bears Are Bad News: What Steelbeak's plot revolves around; he uses a mechanical bear to scare away people from a campground, in order to hollow out huge fir trees and hide missiles inside them.
- Busman's Holiday: Drake just wanted to get Gosalyn to enjoy the outdoors while camping, only to stumble onto F.O.W.L.'s plot to turn the park into a missile-launch site.
- Camping Episode: The main focus of the episode is Drake teaching Gosalyn how to be a true outdoors-person.
- City Mouse: Gosalyn makes her disdain for camping and the great outdoors clear right from the start: "If I wanted to live like that, I'd move in with Bigfoot!" This leads to a Heel Realization when Steelbeak shows the same attitude while destroying trees and spraying butterfies with pesticide.
- Damsel in Distress: Gosalyn gets captured and held hostage by Steelbeak.
- Fancy Camping: The Muddlefoots turn up in a modern RV that, by comparison to Drake and Gosalyn's tent, is pure luxury, and their idea of "roughing it" is a portable TV. And yet Herb talks about being a "true outdoorsman" the same way Drake did earlier in the episode. Drake is so incensed by this that he goes full outdoorsman, much to Gosalyn's embarrassment.
- Failed a Spot Check: Twice in the episode, Gosalyn and Drake fail to notice the bear right behind them or trying to kill them, all while the bear ends up getting caught in slapstick shenanigans.
- Foreshadowing: In their first encounter with the bear, Gosalyn whacks it in the face with a spade, causing its head to spin around like a top, stopping only when the beast grabs it and swivels it back into place. It's an early clue of the bear's robotic nature.
- Horrible Camping Trip: Played for Laughs. While not exactly terrible, many things go wrong on this trip - Drake struggles to put the tent up, their dehydrated food bursts like balloons, Gosalyn accidentally burns the tent down and they have to make do with a much smaller one, and then the Muddlefoots turn up to embarrass Drake with their modern camper. And that's even before we get to the murderous bear roaming the park. Or F.O.W.L.'s plot to turn the entire park into a hidden missile site.
- Heel Realization: Gosalyn makes no secret that she's a City Mouse and despises camping, nature and the great outdoors. Her attitude gets thrown back in her face when Steelbeak contemptuously declares his hatred for nature, all while spraying a butterfly with pesticide. This causes Gosalyn to realize just how selfish she was being during the camping trip.
- Instant Mass: Just Add Water!: Drake brings along what look like Food Pills, only to reveal that they're dehydrated food items that expand into the real thing when he adds water. Gosalyn is suitably impressed by this, only for her steak to burst like a balloon when she stabs it with her fork.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gosalyn's first attempt to get out of camping only reminds DW that camping season is happening. As he states, if it wasn't for her, he would have completely forgotten.
